


Cat and Mouse

by Rhianne



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e05 Cypher, Gen, Gen Fic, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:05:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianne/pseuds/Rhianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scenes and an epilogue for season one’s Cypher. What are Jim and Blair going through during their desperate fight against Lash?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat and Mouse

Standing on the sidewalk, watching as Christine began to pull the cab door shut, Blair let his protests fade away. Stupid, stupid, stupid! What the hell had he been thinking, telling Chris that he’d suspected her of leaking information about Lash to the media? Way to build trust in a relationship, Sandburg. The engine flared and Blair stepped back instinctively to avoid the tires, even though he was feet away from getting run over.

Christine glanced up at him once, disappointment and hurt clearly written across her face, and Blair sighed, shaking his head slightly to himself. There was no maybe - after that fiasco at the loft with Jim coming home early, and now this? Christine wouldn’t call him again.

The door between them shut with a decisive thud, but just as Blair was about to raise his hand in a pointless goodbye gesture, he caught sight of his reflection in the cab window. Only problem was, suddenly there were two of him. Confused, Blair stared at himself in the window. In both reflections he was wearing glasses, hair down; but in one he was wearing a black leather jacket, and in the other a jacket with a yellow trim on the collar.

Then, as he watched, trying to make some kind of sense out of what he was seeing, one of the images half-turned and stepped away, out of sight from the window, and the cab pulled away from the sidewalk. In that instant, Blair realized exactly what it was he was looking at.

Oh, shit.

His breath catching in his throat, Blair turned to look behind him, dreading what he was going to see, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Bunches of students were standing around talking, their breath drifting away from them in tendrils of steam from the cold. None of them looked even remotely like him.

After a moment he turned to face the street, ignoring the small voice in his head that warned against him turning his back on what he’d seen. It was a voice he’d already learned to listen to in the weeks since starting to ride with Jim, one that, in fact, sounded suspiciously like Jim’s voice if he listened too closely, but this time he ignored it.

There was nobody there. There couldn’t be, could there? Certainly it couldn’t have been the man he thought he’d recognized in that second as the image disappeared.

It couldn’t be David Lash. Because if it was, then Lash had already chosen his next victim - a choice that was just a little bit too close to home for Blair’s liking.

He shook his head again. No, he was just imagining things. This whole case had him jumping at shadows. He’d been seeing Susan Frasier’s dead body for day’s now, this was just another thing his subconscious was dredging up to unnerve him.

“Relax,” he muttered to himself, still unable to shake the tingling between his shoulder blades that was expecting something to happen at any second. “Just relax.” He walked away, then, consciously keeping his head down and trying not to look at anything around him, not wanting to see David Lash leering at him from another street corner, or in the reflection of a shop window. 

But as much as he tried not to, Blair couldn’t help remembering the restroom at the PD, and the final message that Lash had left on the mirror before killing Dr Bates for the second time.

Who am I now?

 

~*~*~

 

“Just relax. Relax. Oh, man, just calm down.” 

It was a mantra that he’d repeated to himself on the entire journey back to the loft, but so far Blair hadn’t managed to achieve any kind of serenity. 

If anything he was even more jittery, having been jumping at the slightest noise on the streets until eventually he’d given up and hailed a cab, feeling some small sense of security at being on the other side of the cab’s hard, metal shell and locked doors. 

Shutting the door behind him, and locking every deadbolt and chain he could find, helped a little. Blair threw his keys into the basket and slumped against the door in relief, bizarrely out of breath from his slightly panicked flight up the stairs to the third floor.

He took a deep breath to calm himself further, before moving over to the coat rack and shrugging off his leather jacket. He was home, the doors were locked - he was safe here. 

Then a shadow skittered across the skylight, moving so quickly that it barely stayed in sight long enough for Blair to register its presence.

He froze for a second, staring up at the window and trying to reconcile the shape of the shadow with a bird, or a plane, or something else that had any business being up on the roof above the apartment. But even as he stared, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to come up with a thing. Blair knew exactly who it was running around up on the roof.

Absently pulling his jacket back on, Blair looked nervously around the apartment. His heart skipped a beat when he realized that the window was sitting wide open for anyone who cared to look. He dashed over to it, expecting Lash to appear on the window ledge at any moment. 

‘Jesus Jim’, he thought as he flicked the latch closed. ‘What kind of cop goes out and leaves his window wide open?’ The window locks were much flimsier than Blair would have liked - it wouldn’t take much to kick them open, or even to slide a credit card through the cracks between the windows and simply lift the latch out of its cradle, but Blair knew that nothing short of metal blinds and padlocks would make him feel safe now.

He pulled down the blind, blocking out the sight of the city below, and headed for the phone, but Blair hadn’t even got halfway across the apartment before Lash started trying the handle on the back door.

“Oh God,” he whispered, blocking out the ominous rattling as he dashed the rest of the way and hit the speed dial for Jim’s pager. This was bad. 

Really, really bad.

No, it would be okay. He’d called Jim, there was no way he was going to end up lying dead in his own bathtub like Susan Frasier, with a yellow scarf wrapped around his throat. “It's okay, it's okay,” he repeated out loud, breathing heavily and glaring intently at the phone as if he could make it ring by force of will alone. Where the hell was Jim? “Ring! Come on, please!” 

The phone stayed stubbornly silent, and only then did Blair acknowledge the mistake he’d made in running to an empty loft. He should have made the cab drop him off at the station, or gone somewhere public with a lot of people. 

Somewhere Lash couldn’t attack him without drawing a lot of attention. What the hell had he been thinking? That was it. He was giving Jim one more second to return his page, and then he was out the door. Lash seemed to have fallen silent for a moment - surely he’d have enough time to make it to the street at least.

A loud crash and the front door rattled back on its hinges, slamming into the wall. Shocked into immobility, Blair just stared as Lash walked in, his eyes locked onto Blair like a hawk stalking its pray. There was a determined insanity raging in Lash’s eyes, a focused excitement about hunting his next victim, and Blair shuddered. They’d spent days interacting with this guy; how could they not have seen it? Seen who he really was? 

Then Lash took a step towards him, and the adrenaline kicked in.

Run!

Blair bolted, heading towards Lash in an attempt to get out from where he was trapped in the kitchen. Lash hesitated, apparently surprised that Blair was coming towards him instead of backing away, and so was slow to react when Blair feinted off to the right, thinking frantically to try and work out an escape route. 

The splintered front door stood tantalizingly open, but Lash was in the way and Blair had no desire to get any closer to the serial killer than he absolutely had to. The back door was locked, Lash had already tried to get in that way, and the key was hanging on a hook by the door, but Blair wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Lash would just stand there and wait while he put the key in the lock.

And yet, for some reason, that’s exactly what was happening. Lash was just standing there in the doorway, watching Blair, his eyes running up and down Blair’s body as if assessing him for something. Blair wondered nervously what he was looking for, but from the knowing, satisfied smile that slowly crept across Lash’s features, whatever it was, he’d found it.

“Look,” Blair began, aware of the tremor in his voice as he held his hands out as if to keep Lash away, “Jim knows you’re here. The cops are already on their way. Just go, okay man?”

Even as he said it he knew the words were useless, a waste of precious escaping time that Jim would probably yell at him for later, but Blair had always found a measure of protection in words, and he was scared enough that babbling was almost guaranteed. But nor was he a stupid man, and even as he was speaking Blair was edging further right, moving over towards the windows and the sofas, wondering if he could somehow get out onto the balcony. Or even get close enough to the door that he could make a run for it past Lash, perhaps even manage to surprise him long enough to get down onto the street where someone might see what was happening.

Bizarrely enough, at first it even seemed to be working. Unconsciously Lash was keeping pace with him, and every time Blair moved, he took a step to the left almost in unison, but most importantly, every step was taking Lash that little bit further away from the front door. Just as Blair began to think that he might actually be able to get away, Lash frowned.

“Don’t you want to go see the ducks, Blair?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised, and Blair had time for one brief second to wonder what the hell ducks had to do with anything before Lash suddenly moved, heading for him with a single-minded determination that made Blair’s blood run cold.

Blair ran, skirting the back of the nearest sofa in the desperate hope that he might be able to keep the furniture between himself and Lash until he was close enough to make a run for the shattered door.

But Lash simply jumped onto the nearer couch, launching himself from the cushions and tackling Blair, sending the couch tipping over onto its side and Blair slamming into the window. Miraculously the glass didn’t break, but the impact of Lash’s body knocked all the air out of Blair’s. Fingers scrabbling for some kind of weapon, for something he might be able to use against the madman, all Blair was able to grasp was the window blind, which he pulled down on top of them both. 

The top of the blind was heavy, glancing a blow off of Blair’s shoulder but thankfully most of its weight landed on Lash, who went limp and ended up lying half on top of Blair.

Blair managed to scramble free of Lash, taking the opportunity and running for the front door, praying that Lash was unconscious but unwilling to take the time to check. But it seemed that the blow had done little more than wind him, because Blair had barely managed to take a step when Lash’s hand reached out and grabbed his ankle, sending him crashing into the TV stand. 

The stand collapsed, sending the television toppling to the floor and papers sliding all over the loft from the shelf beneath. The stand was on wheels and it slid away into the small unit by the door, sending that to the floor with a crash that mingled in with the one the television made as it hit the hardwood floors, the TV screen shattering on impact. Catching the side of his head on the stand, Blair went down hard, his body going limp even as his mind screamed at him to get up, but pain was lancing through his head and Blair couldn’t seem to find the strength to move. 

Only semi-conscious, he struggled to get his hands under him, desperately trying to make them take his weight so that he could struggle to his feet, but before he could do more than bring his arms out from under him someone was turning him over, and with a groan Blair found himself on his back.

For a second he wondered if Jim had arrived, but then he looked up and through dimmed, wavering vision he saw Lash looming over him. Renewed terror flooded through him, bringing with it a wave of adrenaline that enabled him to move again, and he bucked wildly, trying to dislodge Lash from where he was pinning Blair to the floor, but Lash hit him hard across the jaw. Jagged lights danced across his vision as the same side of his head that had hit the TV stand impacted with the hard, wooden floor, and Blair was barely aware of anything until a sudden stream of foul tasting liquid was forced past his lips, his body automatically swallowing some of it so that it didn’t block his airway.

Then his mouth was held shut, blocking any attempt he might have made at spitting the liquid out. Blair tried to move, tried to knock Lash’s hand away so that he could spit out the drug, could get away somehow. But his body refused to move and as he stared up in horror all he could see were Lash’s eyes staring down at him, smiling at him, and somehow he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open anymore. 

Lash was still using his own body to pin Blair to the floor. The hand covering Blair’s mouth was removed, and he gasped, desperately needing air. 

But something soft was forced between his teeth before he’d barely managed one breath. And as he slid away into the darkness, his numbed mind was aware of just one, terrifying thing.

He’d become Lash’s fifth victim.

 

~*~*~

 

The work-out had helped calm him, easing the tension in his muscles and giving him an outlet for the frustrated anger that had been burning within him since he’d realized who the so-called Dr. Bates really was. The son of a bitch had been sitting there, taunting them for days, watching them run around Cascade trying to find him. Hell, the little bastard had even given them an accurate psychological profile of himself, daring them to catch him if they would only see what was right in front of their noses.

That Lash had escaped their desperate search of the station only added insult to injury, and Jim had retreated to the sanctuary of the station gym as soon as the search was over, needing time to calm himself before going back on the hunt for the killer. To Jim, a solid workout produced the same effect that meditation did for Blair, allowing him to shake off the stresses of the day and begin afresh. Something he’d definitely needed today.

A hot shower afterwards had completed the ritual, and now Jim was dressing quickly, his mind already beginning to go back over their dealings with Lash, looking for any detail which might have been missed because of his deception.

Jim’s beeper sounded then, and he reached into the locker to retrieve it with one hand, the other twisting behind his neck to straighten his collar.  
Looking at the dark display, it was a few seconds before the numbers fully registered, and Jim frowned slightly as he recognized his own phone number - with 911 tacked on the end. He straightened, a sharp intake of breath as he recognized the distress call. Very few people had his pager number, and of those people, even fewer would be calling from inside the loft. 

Sandburg. 

But why the 911? Grabbing his bag and running from the gym, Ellison threw the pager into his pocket and rummaged for his cell phone, dialing the loft and praying that Sandburg answered. The 911 could have been for anything, right? Maybe Blair had set fire to the toaster, or his car had broken down, or something. Anything, in fact, other than the one thing Jim had the horrible feeling was a distinct possibility. 

Simon had read Lash’s patient file out loud, had stated that Lash’s alternate identities - his victims - were chosen from those around him, people he’d interacted with in the days before he decided to become somebody new. The act of shedding Dr Bates’ clothes, the message left on the restroom mirror - all of it had indicated that Lash had chosen his next victim already, and Lash had spent most of the last couple of days around him, Sandburg and Simon. So why the hell hadn’t they seen this coming?

The phone at the apartment continued to ring unanswered, and Jim hung up before quickly redialing, only to hear the same endless ringing.

Jim threw himself into the truck, turning on the engine and slamming the car into gear as he screeched out of his parking space and onto the streets of Cascade. He turned on the sirens, ignoring all traffic signals as he sped for Prospect Avenue, all too well aware that when Lash’s last victim made a 911 call, Susan Frasier had already been dead for hours. Praying that there was no way Lash could have discovered his beeper number, and knowing that it was on any number of police files back at the precinct, Jim increased his speed.

There was no way Blair was going to end up as David Lash’s next victim. 

No way in hell.

 

~*~*~

 

Jim made it to the loft in record time, racing up the stairs and only slowing down as he reached the third floor landing. He pulled his gun from its holster, the cold metal weight sitting reassuringly in his hand as he moved carefully down the hallway. He paused outside, taking in the slightly ajar door as he raised his gun, tightening his two-handed grip before kicking the door open sharply. The doorjamb was splintered to the left by the lock, telling Jim that he wasn’t the only one to kick their way into the loft this evening.

He followed the door as it flew open, moving into the apartment before anyone who might be waiting on the inside could move against him. Sentinel eyesight took in the wreck of the loft - the table by the front door had been knocked over, and the sofa by the window was on its side. One blind had been pulled down, and there were papers from ruined shelves strewn all over the floor. The loft had been wrecked more thoroughly than when Larry had trashed the place, and that was saying something. The television had been knocked off its stand, and shattered glass from the screen glistened all over the wooden floor.

Jim stepped further into the room, looking for any sign of movement, anything that might tell him where Sandburg was. Nothing moved, and Jim cautiously extended his senses, listening for any sound in the loft that might mean Lash was still here. 

He was out of luck - the only sound he could make out was the steady ticking of the clock on the wall, which ominously counted out the seconds since Sandburg’s 911 page. Lash wouldn’t still be here - even though Jim had got here as fast as he could, it had still taken way too long.

“Blair?” he called out in vain, lowering his gun in defeat when no answer came. The loft was empty, and Jim had no idea where Lash might have taken Sandburg.

He was already too late.

 

~*~*~

 

Somewhere close by, it was raining. Blair could hear the water splashing against the ground, puddles of water that rippled with each new drop. His head was killing him, a relentless pounding in the back of his skull that increased in intensity the closer he drifted towards consciousness.

The right side of his body was cold and damp, and a fine shiver had set into his bones, telling him that he’d been here - wherever here was - for a while.

Blair groaned softly in pain, sticking his tongue out to moisten dry lips; but instead of skin he felt only cloth, and that unexpected sensation was enough to startle him completely awake. Blearily he lifted his head, glancing around him into the murky darkness. He tried to sit up but something stopped his arms from moving more than a few inches, and he glanced down to see thick leather straps tied around his arms, and heavy chains running from them, down to an iron ring embedded into the floor at his feet. 

What the hell…?

Blair pulled hard on the chains, his movements slow and clumsy, but they held fast. Suddenly he knew exactly what the cloth he’d felt with his tongue was, and he didn’t have to concentrate to feel the knot that was jammed between his teeth, stopping him from pushing the gag out. Blair didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that the gag would be yellow.   
A jumble of memories rushed back at him - the door to the loft smashing as Lash forced his way past the locks, the desperate battle to get away from that madman, or at least to stall until Jim could get there. 

Apparently, neither plan had worked. Susan Frasier’s dead body had haunted Blair since the moment they’d found her lying naked in her bathtub - it seemed that now, he was going to get the chance to follow in her footsteps.

Lash was going to drown him.

Horrified, he rolled over onto his back, staring helplessly up at the ceiling he could barely make out in the distance. 

The room was spinning lazily, lurching from side to side as if he was on a boat, and his stomach rolled with the scenery. But in spite of that he could tell that he was in a warehouse of some kind - an empty one if the shattered windows were anything to go by. Debris littered the floor around him, empty boxes and papers moldy from the rain that came in through the holes in the roof. 

What the hell was he doing in a warehouse? All the other victims had been found drowned in their baths - why wasn’t he dead already?

Not that Blair was complaining, but he wasn’t sure that the idea that Lash might have something else in mind for him was reassuring or even more terrifying than the prospect of drowning. 

Speaking of which, where was Lash? He had to be close by somewhere. How long was it going to be before the guy came back and killed him?

Blair kept pulling uselessly at the chains as he looked around, taking in the rickety flights of stairs as he fought the pain in the back of his head that was threatening to send him under again.

He let his head drop back to the floor with a sigh, smothering a gasp as the pain in his head increased ten-fold on impact. The cold began to seep into his back, and Blair was absurdly grateful for his jacket to ward off at least some of the damp.

‘Shit Blair’, he thought wearily, ‘get a grip! There’s a madman somewhere nearby who’s going to kill you and steal your identity, and you’re worried about the cold?’

His fingers tightened once again around the confining chains as if he could tear through the restraints simply by force of will. But he felt weaker than a kitten and could barely keep his eyes open, no matter how much he wanted to keep watch, to have some kind of warning when Lash returned. 

Blair had never claimed to be Superman, and the only way these chains were coming off was when Lash came back with the key.

Blair allowed his eyes to drift shut in defeat, fighting back the surge of nausea as his head continued to spin from the sedative he’d been drugged with.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

 

~*~*~

 

Jim was pacing furiously in the loft, his movements limited only by the length of the phone cord he was gripping like a lifeline. 

This was a nightmare. Blair was gone, and Jim didn’t have the slightest idea where Lash would have taken him. 

The second he’d realized that Lash had been here, Jim had gone straight for the bathroom, his heart in his throat. His hearing told him there was nobody else in the loft; he couldn’t hear any heartbeat other than his own, and nobody else was breathing, but Jim was all too well aware that if Lash had killed Blair, he wouldn’t have heard either. 

It had taken all the courage Jim possessed to slide open the bathroom door, eyes going straight to the ominous white bathtub.

Half convinced that he was going to be staring down at Blair’s body, it took a few seconds for Jim to register that there was nothing there. Relief washed over him like a tidal wave, and he sagged against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment to catch his breath before turning and racing through the rest of the loft, quickly checking out both bedrooms for any sign of either Blair or Lash.

After determining that the loft was completely empty, Jim headed straight for the phone to call the station, letting Simon know what had happened and calling a forensics team to go over the loft with a fine toothcomb.

Time was running out - and Jim was all too aware that Blair could be dead already.

“It's not your fault,” Carolyn repeated from down the phone line, but Jim was in no mood to listen to platitudes.

“I let that creep slip through my fingers too many times, Carolyn,” he clicked his fingers impatiently as he walked, desperately trying to think of something they’d missed, something that would help him find this bastard before it was too late. Please God, they found him in time. “What about the water? Did you come up with anything about the water?” 

Jim rubbed his hand across his head in frustration as Carolyn hesitated before answering. “We found some contamination. It could be waste.”

Jim frowned. Waste…what kind of waste? “Like from a sewer?” 

“Maybe. I can't say for sure yet.” 

Jim ran the entire investigation over in his mind, from the moment he and Blair had responded to the reports of a prowler. There had to be something. “What about Susan Fraser's clothes? Anything?” 

“Nothing.” 

“All right, I'm gonna head over to her house. Maybe there's something we missed. I'll call you later.” Jim hung up without waiting for a response and headed for the smashed door.

The clock was ticking.

 

~*~*~

 

Jim broke every record in the book to get to Susan Frasier’s home, opening the door and walking straight through the police tape without giving a thought to procedure. A quick check of the downstairs revealed nothing new, and Jim moved upstairs and into the bathroom where they’d found her body. 

Kneeling down by the tub, he frowned as he took in the tiny marks all over its surface. A thin shaft of light ran down into the plughole and Jim followed it idly, stiffening when he realized that there was something in the drainpipe itself, a few inches below the plughole.

He focused in the way Blair had taught him, and thanked every deity he knew that he’d suffered through every one of Blair’s damn tests when the image sharpened, and he realized he was looking at a small, white feather.

He’d found what he was looking for. He just didn’t know what it meant yet.

 

~*~*~

 

Jim had to suffer through an agonizing half-hour wait back at the station before Carolyn was able to identify exactly what it was that he’d found.  
“It's down,” she announced, her gaze focused into the microscope. 

Simon just looked confused, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. He looked across to Jim for some kind of explanation as to why this was so important, why the Detective had dragged them all back from the search. “What, a feather?” 

“Down?” For a moment Jim was blank, trying to figure out what such a strange clue could possibly mean. How could a down feather have found its way into the plumbing system at Susan Frasier’s house? Then he saw it. The horrifying interview with Lash’s unstable father; the absurd almost-sympathy he’d felt for the serial killer after hearing about the hell the child had grown up in. The horror on Sandburg’s face as the terrible story had unfolded. And Lash’s only friend growing up - the pet duck that he’d choked to death in his room. 

This was the clue he’d been searching for. It had to be. It had to mean more than just the idea that Lash carried around a pocketful of duck feathers, as a macabre memento of his first kill. But what the hell was it’s significance?

The water sample that Dan Wolfe had harvested from Susan Frasier’s stomach during her autopsy had proved that the woman had been killed somewhere else, long before her body was left in the bathtub and Lash had placed that hysterical 911 call. 

Jim had been present when Carolyn had first analyzed the contents, and even then the water had given off a faint scent of…something. Something out of place, but at the time he’d dismissed it as nothing more than the lingering decomposition of a dead body, or perhaps that was the smell all water took on once it had been ingested. But maybe…just maybe… “Carolyn, give me that water in the beaker.” Carolyn just stared at him in confusion, not yet moving to do as he’d asked. “Just get it,” he prompted, and with a long sigh, she moved towards the cooler where the evidence was stored. 

Simon straightened up from his slump over the cabinet, replacing his glasses as he asked, “Where are you going with this, Jim?” But Jim ignored him, his eyes not moving from the beaker that Carolyn was carrying back to the workbench.

“And break the seal,” he added, his voice tightening in growing excitement. He was right - he had to be. 

Instead of joining in his excitement, Carolyn stared at her ex-husband as if he’d lost his mind. “I can't, Jim,” she exclaimed. “Oxygen will contaminate the sample. It'll be useless as evidence!” 

But Jim had no time for the legal niceties of building a case against a suspect. Procedure paled into insignificance next to finding Blair before Lash killed him. The reminder that Lash took his victims somewhere else before drowning them had re-ignited his hope that Sandburg might not be dead yet, that Jim might still have enough time to save his friend, if only he knew where to look. “Sandburg's life is at stake!” he snapped back at her.

“What could you possibly do with this water?” 

“Would you just break the seal?” he begged, frowning. The truth was, thanks to Sandburg, he could do a hell of a lot with a beaker full of stagnant water; but he knew damn well that if he started talking about Peruvian tribes and Sir Richard Burton, his oh-so-sensible and scientific ex-wife would dismiss him as simply insane. Out of the corner of his eye, though, Jim could see Simon’s gaze sharpening as he began to see Jim’s intention. Simon knew all about the Sentinel thing, and in the end, he was the only one that Jim had to convince. “Come on, Simon, please.”

An eternal moment later, Simon finally agreed. “Break the seal,” he instructed Carolyn. “I'll be responsible.” 

She wasn’t happy, that much was crystal clear. But Jim didn’t care as Carolyn tore the seal from the beaker with no further argument, her sharp, stilted movements clearly displaying her displeasure as she shoved the beaker angrily towards Jim, before placing her hand on her hip and fixing Simon with an accusatory glare. Apparently, she thought that Simon was simply indulging Jim’s desperation, and destroying her chain of evidence in the process.

Jim reached for the beaker, bringing it up to his nose and sniffing deeply. 

Around him, he was aware of the tension in the room rising as both Carolyn and Simon waited for him to pass verdict on the water, and for a terrifying second he smelled nothing at all. But he recognized it as a momentary lapse of his senses, something that Sandburg had gone through with him a thousand times. 

‘You’re a monster, man, a human crime lab with organic surveillance equipment…you just have to learn to concentrate.’ 

Moving the beaker slightly away from his face and taking a single breath to center himself, Jim closed his eyes and sniffed at the sample again. This time he was rewarded. There was the faintest aroma of earth, like being in the forest in spring during a rainstorm. He smelled stagnant water, chemicals, and the unmistakable aroma of sewers, or feces. And animals, the kind of acrid smell that was most at home in a zoo, or a horse’s stable. 

But it wasn’t the smell of horses - he smelled birds.

“You were right about waste. It smells like bird waste,” he mused, and Carolyn’s disbelief exploded between them like a palpable thing hovering in the room.

“Bird waste?!” Simon put a hand on her shoulder to forestall any other interruptions, and Jim took another sniff of the water, thinking furiously to try and put the puzzle together.

Bird waste. Sewers? No, the smell wasn’t strong enough, and it was too specific. If he’d drowned her in a sewer Jim would have smelled human waste over everything. A zoo, perhaps? Again, Jim dismissed the idea. Even though her body had been found hours after her actual time of death, the nearest zoo was still much too far away for Lash to have transported her there and back in such a relatively short amount of time.

What was it?

The bird meant something. The duck even more important than the waste itself. The duck was part of his childhood, just as much a part of Lash’s signature as the yellow scarf around the necks of his victims.

Ducks.

That was it!

“Duck waste. Down,” Jim looked up at the others, his words falling over himself in his excitement. “You got a down feather, right? He's drowning his victims in a duck pond.” 

Simon and Carolyn merely stared at him, lost and unbelieving. “Whoa, that's a reach, Jim,” Simon warned, shaking his head. 

“Simon's right - we can't assume anything because you smell it!” 

But Jim ignored them. He knew he was right. Simon might know about the sentinel stuff, but Jim knew for certain that the Captain didn’t understand it. He was indulging Jim’s insistence that Sandburg ride along for him as much to stop Jim from handing over his badge as for any real belief in what the kid was doing, but Simon still had no real comprehension of what Jim was really capable of, of what he was already able to do even though he and Sandburg had barely managed to scratch the surface of his senses.

“Unless you have any other suggestions,” Jim said, “this is all we've got.”

 

~*~*~

 

Staring at Jim, Simon could do nothing but back down, bowled over in the face of Jim’s desperate determination. The very idea that Jim could track Lash down in a city the size of Cascade simply by smelling half a beaker-full of water was, in fact, the most ridiculous thing that Simon had ever heard. Yet Jim was not one prone to flights of fancy, and despite his misgivings, Simon believed him.

Even though he had broken every police procedure in the book, Simon knew that Jim deliberately destroying the evidence wasn’t going to be a problem. There wouldn’t be a trial. 

He’d only ever seen Ellison in this frame of mind twice before in all the years they’d worked together. In those desperate days after Jack Pendergrast had disappeared, and then again when Danny Choi had been gunned down in front of him, Jim Ellison had worked with a single-minded intensity that had explained to all around him exactly how he’d once managed to survive eighteen months in an unforgiving jungle.

Simon had no doubt that Jim would track Lash down, and he would lay money that whatever else happened, Lash wouldn’t survive the coming confrontation. Ellison had his own kind of justice, and when angered, could be merciless in dispensing it.

Now the only question that remained was whether or not they managed to find Lash before he claimed another victim.

But as Simon watched Carolyn move over to the computer to begin searching for all the duck ponds within the Cascade city limits, wondered exactly how it was the kid had managed, in just a few short weeks, to worm his way under Ellison’s defenses to such an extent that Jim would place him on a pedestal alongside both his former mentor, and a young kid he’d adored.  
Perhaps there really was more to Blair Sandburg than Simon had ever realized.

 

~*~*~

 

The rain had stopped, but now the room itself was moving. It had been moving before, of course, but that had been a gentle swaying, like standing on the deck of an anchored ship. This was more like a Force Nine gale, the movements uneven and rocky even over the screaming pain in his head. Then Blair’s feet brushed over something warm and soft, his head knocked into something hard, and the steel band across his legs tightened as he changed direction. Finally Blair began to suspect that he wasn’t on a ship, but for some reason he couldn’t gather his thoughts.

There was a dull thud somewhere below him, and Blair felt himself drop down a few feet, his stomach rolling dangerously as the impact of…something…rattled through him. Then it happened again, and Blair was just trying to figure out how his eyes worked when a voice sounded from somewhere close by.

“…careful of the step, man. That's for party-crashers.” The voice was familiar though he couldn’t work out why, and even though there was a tiny part of him screaming that he had to wake up, now, because whatever was happening was seriously important and he needed to be awake for it, Blair couldn’t seem to free himself of the fog that surrounded him. 

Another step, then another, and Blair had just managed to figure out how to crack his eyes open, a major achievement even though he couldn’t make any sense of what he saw, when everything moved again. His back impacted something hard and unyielding, and the world spun away once more.

A sharp sting to his cheek brought him part of the way back to reality and he moaned, wanting to find the strength to stop whatever it was so that he could just drift back to sleep. But he couldn’t seem to move his arms, or anything else for that matter. Then another sting came, and he shook his head as if trying to dislodge a fly, but it made no difference. 

The stings were doing something right, though, because the fog he was drifting in started to clear, and finally Blair was able to open his eyes…

…and found himself staring straight into a nightmare. 

Lash’s face was only a few inches away, his hand extended to hover over him like the Sword of Damocles. Blair jerked backwards in alarm, crying out in horror, but his words were badly muffled by the gag he could feel in his mouth. He began to remember waking up once before, somewhere much darker and colder than this place, but Blair couldn’t tear his eyes away from the face of his captor long enough to try and work out where he was. 

Lash smiled when he saw that Blair was awake, the hand that had been so close to his face closing into a fist and coming to rest on Blair’s chest. Blair could feel his heart racing, his breaths tripping over themselves as he pressed backwards, trying to get as much distance between himself and Lash as he could. 

“It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay,” Lash repeated over and over, his voice almost soothing, as if he was trying to calm a skittish animal, but Blair found no comfort in the words. This was a man who had murdered four people, and who had callously posed as his last victim for days before his identity was discovered - Blair had no illusions as to why he’d been brought here.

Then Lash leaned back, moving slightly away from him, and Blair took the small pretence of comfort that the increased distance offered, to try and get himself under control - recognizing the gathering panic that was making it hard to breathe through the cloying fabric of the gag. 

“I'd like you to meet…my friends,” Lash continued, his pleasure audible in his words. Lash’s hand moved away from Blair’s chest as he straightened up, his other hand leaning on the arm of the chair that Blair was sitting in. “I only have four of them now, but there’ll be more.” 

Then he stepped away from Blair, looking down at his captive as he gestured around him with a macabre smile. “You know, friends are, like really easy to make, dude.” 

As he spoke, Lash was making exaggerated gestures that were almost comic in their preciseness, and at first Blair thought that it was just a symptom of Lash’s psychosis. But at Lash’s last words, he realized that the killer was already beginning to step into his new persona. He was mimicking Blair himself in more than just his hair and clothes; the expressive way that Blair moved as he spoke was now being imitated in front of him - a final performance before he was killed. Blair closed his eyes then, unwilling to watch this sick impersonation, but the darkness behind his closed eyelids was scarier still. At least with his eyes open he’d have some kind of warning when the time came, however useless that warning might be.

“There's, uh...Adam Walker,” Lash turned away, moving over to the far wall and Blair looked around the room he was in for the first time. It was like a theatre set for Phantom of the Opera - mannequins gathered in the far corner, hanging from the ceiling, with lit candles shining futilely in the semi-darkness of the room. 

A small, wooden staircase led down from the darkened doorway, and a thick layer of dust covered every visible surface. 

Lash moved over to the mannequins, and Blair’s eyes widened as he took in the wheelchair suspended from the ceiling, and the candles hanging beneath a ghastly white face. Adam Walker’s wheelchair. This place was a shrine to Lash’s previous victims. All the things he’d used to become each of them, carefully preserved here, in their memory.

Blair wondered hysterically what Lash would display in his memory. The wig that was currently hanging from his jacket pocket? He’d already noticed one of his own checked shirts over the back of a chair among the mannequins - Lash must have taken it from the loft when he’d broken in.

But Lash was still talking, and however much Blair didn’t want to listen, however he might want to squeeze his eyes shut and scream that this wasn’t happening - that he wasn’t going to die in a run-down warehouse at the hands of a madman - Blair found himself paying attention.

“…was really easy. He didn't struggle at all. But I guess it's because he was really stoned.” 

Blair’s mind seemed to have frozen in terror, uselessly repeating one word over and over as he stared at the man who would become his murderer. 

No no no no no. 

He twisted his fingers around the chains, feeling how strong and sturdy they were beneath his hands as they clinked together. His terror was threatening to overwhelm him, and although he was aware of his surroundings there was still a fog lingering at the back of his mind, slowing his reactions and making this all seem like a horrifying dream. It was taking all the strength he could find simply to keep his eyes open.

“And then there's...Billy Bright,” Lash said, mimicking another exaggerated voice as he moved over to a different mannequin. “Bright...he was not.” 

Lash reached for a pair of drumsticks, and Blair distantly recalled that Billy had been a drummer. Then Lash moved back towards him, and any coherent thought that Blair might have had fled in terror. His breath was coming in gasps, his lips moving soundlessly against the gag as Lash began drumming the sticks against the chair. “But I...overlooked that because, man...because he had talent.”

Blair blinked rapidly as if he could just wish away the apparition in front of him, watching each of the drumsticks impact around him even as his vision blurred in and out of focus. His body felt heavy, uncooperative to his panicked commands to move, to do something other than just sit there, but it seemed that the sedative still had a hold of him, and the chains around his arms and legs made any kind of escape attempt impossible anyway.

Lash froze, staring down at him with an intense focus that made the hair on the back of Blair’s neck stand on end, chilling his blood as he waited helplessly. Lash spoke again, his voice lower this time and even more menacing than before. He ran the drumsticks down either side of Blair’s face and then Blair did close his eyes, twisting his head from side to side to try and push them away, but Lash simply pushed the ends of the drumsticks hard into Blair’s cheeks, increasing the pressure until Blair was forced to be still, to submit to Lash’s touch. 

“Oh...then there was sweet Susan.” 

As soon as Blair stopped moving, Lash stepped away, apparently satisfied, and Blair risked opening his eyes again to see Lash move over to Susan Frasier’s memorial, lifting the black veil in a twisted parody of a marriage ceremony. “She had really good taste in cars, but that hair, those clothes? I mean, what was the girl thinking?”

Taking his eyes off the psychopath, Blair glanced around him, blinking away the tears he could feel running from his eyes. He still couldn’t seem to keep his eyes focused for more than a few seconds at a time. He knew he had to pull himself together, to do something before it was too late and Jim found him floating in his own bathtub back at the loft, but he just couldn’t seem to find the strength to do it.

Please, Jim, he prayed. Please find me before it’s too late. But Blair also knew that his hope was just a pipe dream. He’d worked the case - he knew exactly how little they’d managed to find out about Lash. He could be being held anywhere in Cascade, and Jim wouldn’t have a clue how to find him. 

Then Lash’s voice changed again, switching back to the conversational, almost chatty tone that he’d used as Dr. Bates. He crossed over to a wooden chair and sat down as he spoke. 

“You know...I think my finest hour...was getting up into your partner's face,” he said thoughtfully. Then his gaze sharpened, and even though Blair was now having to fight just to keep his eyes open, self-preservation meant that he saw the predatory look in Lash’s eyes as he moved towards him once more. This time the man didn’t stop a few feet away, but came right up into Blair’s face, and he could see from Lash’s expression that he was running out of time. 

Blair’s breathing quickened, coming in panicked gasps as Lash leaned over him, placing a hand on either side of the chair and spinning it round suddenly. “But now... it's time for hairy Blairy…and the beautiful...china doll.” 

Blair groaned at the movement, his head lolling uselessly to the side as he waited for the end. But surprisingly Lash just turned and walked away, and Blair closed his eyes, slumping back into the chair in relief at the unexpected respite.

 

~*~*~

 

The computer program seemed agonizingly slow, as Jim and Carolyn searched through Cascade for duck ponds. Glued to the screen, Jim was nevertheless hyper-aware of the near-silent ticking of the clock on the wall behind him, and he didn’t have to turn around to know that they were running short of time. An hour had passed since Jim had burst in on the trashed loft, and God knows how long Blair had been in Lash’s hands before that.

It only took a few seconds to drown someone, to hold their heads under the water until water filled the lungs and they stopped fighting, the relentless onslaught of water overcoming the body’s natural need to defend itself. 

They’d had an unmarked patrol car stationed outside the loft since Jim had raised the alarm, just in case Lash dared to try and bring Sandburg back to the loft to follow his MO of leaving his victims in their own bathtubs, but Jim took no relief in that knowledge. If Lash did return to the loft, even knowing that Sandburg lived with the very cop who was hunting him, then it would already be too late - Lash would only be returning a body.

“Duck ponds, duck ponds,” Carolyn muttered as she entered the search term into the computer. Immediately, the computer flashed up a possible location. “Here. Hillsborough Park.” 

But Simon shot down the idea before Jim could even recall whereabouts in Cascade Hillsborough Park was. “No, that's no good. It's all gated. There's no public access.” 

Damn.

“Grandview zoo?” she offered, and now it was Jim’s turn to shake his head. Jim had dismissed the zoo as being too far from the center of Cascade the minute he’d identified the duck waste smell in the water. Besides, the zoo was too well-guarded to suit a serial killer.

“Twenty-four hour security. It's got to be isolated, where he can kill unobserved.” Jim frowned. Maybe Simon was right, and this was just another dead end after all. They didn’t have time for this.

“Here's the last one. Alfred's Pond - down by the waterfront.” 

Scanning the screen, Jim took in the shape of the coastline and the identifying markings on the simple map, his mind supplying images of the real Alfred’s Pond. Near Stenley Park, Alfred’s Pond was right in the middle of a particularly unsavory part of town often frequented by the Vice Squad when the Mayor went on another of his zero-tolerance campaigns - usually a few months before election time. Years before it had been the smartest place in Cascade, but times changed, and it had long since become rundown and unkempt. Definitely not the kind of place to be seen in after dark if you could help it. “Right in the middle of old warehouses and abandoned buildings. He's got to be there somewhere.” 

“Well, wait a minute,” Carolyn protested. “Shouldn't we check nearby towns as well?” 

“No,” Jim said, dismissing the idea out of hand. Lash had to be close. It was the only way the timescale on the previous murders worked, and besides - if he wasn’t in Cascade, Jim didn’t have a hope in hell of finding him, and that simply wasn’t an option. “There's no time. Simon, we got to take a shot right now.”

 

~*~*~

 

Blinking slowly, confusion rolling around in his head, Blair took in the candles around them, the flickering light casting eerie, moving shadows on the walls, and looked around for Lash. The madman was now standing a few feet away - hadn’t he been leaning right over Blair just a second ago? Had Blair dozed off for a while? He certainly felt tired enough to drift off to sleep at any moment, even with the fear that was ricocheting around in his system, screaming at him to wake up and do something.

“Yeah, this is going to really be fun,” Lash said with a broad smile, pinning his hair back out of the way with what Blair realized with a shudder was one of his own hair ties. “You have a wicked sense of humor.” 

He pulled the wig out of his pocket, a mass of dark curls that moved with the motion as he fitted it over his own blonde hair, turning away from Blair and staring intently into a small, grubby mirror as he adjusted the wig slightly, moving small strands of hair this way and that like a vain model. 

Recognizing the wig from the brief glimpse of Lash’s reflection in the cab mirror, cold dread settled over Blair, bringing with it a nausea that threatened to kill Blair even faster than Lash was going to. Swallowing frantically, Blair forced it back down, perversely using Lash’s words to give him something to focus on, needing something to bring him completely back to the present. “You know... kind of hip...with a touch of the nerd.” 

Turning back to face him, Lash spread his arms wide and smiled again. “All in all, man... quite a piece of work.” 

Revulsion ran through Blair and he began to shake his head, aware that the movement was less controlled than he would have liked. But although the movement did nothing to help his nausea, the discomfort did, at least, begin to finally clear his mind. Encouraged, Blair tightened his fingers round the ice-cold chains, digging his nails into the palm of his hand. He needed to pull himself together, and he needed to do it now. 

Lash was dressed as him again, and it seemed that this was the final act of his macabre fantasy. The only thing that now stood between Lash and his goal of a shiny new identity to play with was Blair himself, and Blair knew that he only had minutes to live. 

Jim wasn’t going to find him in time. If Blair couldn’t find a way to get himself out of this, no-one else would.

 

~*~*~

 

The night was bitterly cold, but out on the rotting boards of the docks out by Alfred’s Pond, Jim was way past caring. His euphoria at having figured out where Lash must be keeping Sandburg had worn off about the time he’d arrived by the ponds and realized just how much of Cascade was filled with abandoned buildings - particularly down by the waterfront. Across the bay he could see the bright lights of the city itself, the skyscrapers of the business district and the flashing lights of the Cascade nightlife. By contrast, there were no lights on this side of the water, the once prosperous neighborhood now lying abandoned and unloved. 

The area was too big to search as a group and so they’d split up, Simon and Rafe heading for Alfred’s Pond and Jim choosing to begin his desperate search of the derelict buildings nearby. 

If Lash had taken Blair straight to Alfred’s Pond then it was already much, much too late. But if not, then he had to have stashed Blair somewhere until he was ready to make the kill. Besides, Lash had to be staying somewhere - his picture had been circulated all over Cascade the instant they’d realized who Dr Bates really was, and though Cascade was a large city, it wasn’t that big. Not so big that a serial killer half the city were hunting and the other half were terrified of, wouldn’t have been spotted if he’d been anywhere near civilization. If he was killing his victims at Alfred’s Pond, then it made sense he might be living nearby himself.

As Jim moved awkwardly over rotting wood and stone boulders that made up the shoreline, Simon’s voice echoed over the radio. “This is Zebra One. We're at Alfred's Pond. We just completed a sweep of the entire area. No sign of either of our targets. Looks like there's nothing here but ducks, man. What's your location?” 

Jim paused, taking comfort from the gun he held tightly with both hands as he answered the Captain. “Zebra One, that's a roger. Commencing sweep. Will advise on location. Out.” 

His words were purposefully terse and to the point. The relief Jim had felt at working out the significance of the down feather was fading, and Jim could feel barely restrained panic start to creep back into his thoughts. 

Panic that he might already be too late, that Sandburg might already be dead. They hadn’t known each other long, but Jim already felt close to Blair, realizing with a mixture of surprise and pleasure that the flaky grad student who seemed to hold the answers to Jim’s whacked out senses might just turn out to be a friend as well as a teacher. It was the only reason that Jim could think of for having allowed him to stay at the loft after the warehouse he’d been staying in had blown up. 

The kid might have a great line in bullshit and pleading eyes, but Ellison knew that favor or not, Jim would happily have given Sandburg his marching orders exactly a week after taking him in if he’d wanted to. Instead, it had been nearly three weeks since the warehouse went up in flames, and although Jim was relieved that the ape was no longer part of the bargain, he’d enjoyed having the company much more than he’d ever expected. The loft had been a quiet, lonely place since Carolyn had moved out, and it was nice to have someone else to come home to. James Ellison wasn’t the loner that so many people at the station believed him to be - not by choice.

Not for the first time, Jim thanked God that he’d taken Sandburg in when he’d begged for a place to stay. The idea that Lash could have kidnapped Blair from somewhere else, from another drafty warehouse or a small one-room apartment with no-one to notice that he was missing until he didn’t show up for his next lectures made Jim’s skin crawl. 

But the strong friendship that was already forming between them made him more desperate to find Lash before it was too late, and that panic was only going to hamper his concentration. So Jim ruthlessly pushed it all to one side, calling on all the training and experience he’d ever had to keep him focused on his one and only goal - tracking down Lash and saving Sandburg.   
His hearing cast out as far as he dared, hands wrapped tightly around his gun to stop himself from zoning, Jim moved further on into the darkness.

 

~*~*~

 

Fear and anger had forced back the last of the fog that was trying so hard to pull him under - at least for the moment - and Blair watched incredulously as Lash added yet another layer of chains to his hands and feet, this time chaining him to the chair itself. 

Then that voice in Blair’s head began again. That voice that he’d heard at the loft, telling him to run, for all the good it had done him. This couldn’t be how it was all going to end. There had to be a way out. He’d only just found Jim, found the Sentinel he’d been searching for his entire adult life. He was finally going to get his doctorate, and beyond that, Blair was beginning to think he might just have found a close friend in the bargain.

Jim must have found his 911 call by now - he must have seen the wreck of the loft. Surely this wasn’t going to end here.

“What are you doing?” he yelled, the sound made almost completely illegible by the gag in his mouth, and he rattled the chains furiously, trying to distract Lash before he could add any further restraints. “What are you doing?” he tried again, and Lash stood up from where he had been kneeling by Blair’s feet. 

“What?” Lash asked, checking all the chains as he moved, and Blair flinched away from the psycho’s crawling touch.

“What are you doing?” 

Lash frowned, leaning on the arms of the chair again as he moved closer. “I can't hear you. I don't understand,” Lash sounded genuinely distressed at that, and raised a hand up towards Blair’s face, making him gasp in fear. “I need to hear your voice more anyway,” he added quietly, pulling the fabric out of Blair’s mouth and leaving it to hang around his captive’s neck. 

Blair coughed once, desperately drawing in air that wasn’t tainted by the bitter taste of the cloth, before screaming out as loud as he could. “Screw you, you head case! Help! Help me!” 

But Lash merely yelled louder, drowning Blair’s desperate cries for help with his own mocking shouts, and Blair’s heart sank as he realized what that meant. There was no-one around to hear them. No-one to hear his screams and dial 911. No handy caretaker or passerby to race to his rescue.

“Damn,” he said brokenly, rattling the chains helplessly as fear threatened to clog up his throat and hot, terrified tears gathered in his eyes.

“You just relax,” Lash said, his voice almost perversely gentle. “We're going to see the ducks and then you're going to have a nice…you're going to have... have a nice, hot bath.” Blair stared at Lash, mute in his horror, and for a long second they watched each other silently.   
Then Lash reached out and touched Blair’s cheek, the touch almost a caress until Blair tried to pull away, but it didn’t work. All it did was make Lash grab him with the other hand, pinning Blair’s head between his fingers. Gasping for breath, Blair squeezed his eyes shut and flinched away, trying to rid himself of Lash’s touch. After what felt like an eternity he opened his eyes again as Lash’s hands moved down to his jaw, tightening his grip until he had Blair’s full attention. “Are you ready to die?” he whispered. “'Cause...I'm ready.”

Trying once more to pull his head free, lips pulled back in disgust, this time Blair was successful, and Lash released him, stepping back and away from the chair. 

Straightening in the restraints and staring after Lash’s retreating form, Blair slowly realized - perhaps truly realized for the first time since the drugs had begun to release their hold on him - that he was staring into the face of his murderer.

This was the place where he was going to die.

 

~*~*~

 

Jim’s ranger training kicked in quickly once he’d finished speaking with Simon, moving through the night efficiently and quietly. Gun permanently drawn and ready, he slipped cautiously between small areas of cover, keeping a watch for anything even vaguely suspicious. This was not a particularly salubrious part of the city, and even though Jim was focused almost completely on finding Lash’s hideout, he wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the signs of any other criminal activity going on around him. The last thing he needed was to get shot accidentally walking into a drug deal or something. 

It was bitterly cold, the rain that had been coming down heavily petering out to a dull, unpleasant drizzle - the kind that soaked you to the skin before you even realized it was raining. But Jim ignored his increasingly damp clothing. He’d shower later, when this was all over and Sandburg was back where he belonged.

Just ahead of him was a large, open warehouse; little more than a rundown roof with a wall on either side. Jim moved through it quickly, hearing the soft pattering of tiny feet as the rats that lived down by the water scurried around just out of sight. 

Dressed from head to toe in black, Jim blended into the darkness, a dark hat pulled down over his head. Reaching the other end of the structure, Jim paused by a pillar intersected with long empty pipes, reaching out with his hearing and straining to hear anything that might tell him where Lash was hiding. But the night was quiet, and he couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Jim frowned, trying to ignore the fears whispering quietly into his ear. 

He couldn’t have been wrong about this place. Sandburg was here somewhere. 

 

~*~*~

 

Somehow, the acceptance of his impending death brought with it an odd kind of calm, a silent resignation that helped even out Blair’s breathing and numbed the terror that had been racing unchecked through his body.

He watched quietly as Lash moved over to a small cabinet that was overflowing with lit candles of all colors and sizes, pulling out a small pill bottle with two red tablets inside. The pills rattled together as he lifted it, turning to Blair and pointing at him as he spoke, his words mocking and smug.

“Progress report, man. How am I doing? Do I make a good you?” 

But the calm had given Blair back the strength that the drugs and the fear had taken away, and he answered angrily, facing his kidnapper in livid fury. “You suck!”

Those first words made Lash stop whatever it was he was doing, his body going still for a telling second before he turned his face to glance hesitantly at Blair.

“You think you can be me?” Blair demanded. “When's my birthday? Huh? What was the name of my first girlfriend?” 

Lash returned to his task, and now Blair could see that he was making up more of the concoction that he’d forced into Blair’s mouth back at the loft - the chloral hydrate that had been found on each of Lash’s previous victims. The sight should have frightened him but perversely Blair simply became more angry, furious at his own helplessness and Lash’s twisted grasp of reality. But Blair could also see that Lash’s movements had slowed, his face settling into a livid mask as he tried not to react to Blair’s words. “How old was I when I broke my arm falling out of Mrs. Danbush's tree? Huh? C'mon, you freak, answer me!”

Lash threw the lid of the bottle he was holding onto the floor at his feet, holding up his hand as if to block out Blair’s words.

‘That’s it,’ thought Blair. ‘You don’t like it when we answer back, do you?’ Because Blair was about to become Lash’s fifth victim, and he knew that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop that from happening. 

But Blair was also lucid enough to realize that there was a fundamental difference between him and all the other people Lash had killed. Unlike them, Blair knew exactly what this guy was. Lash himself had admitted that Billy Bright had been too stoned to fully realize what was happening to him - the poor bastard probably hadn’t even realized that he was being murdered until it was all over - and poor Susan Frasier must have been almost incoherent with terror at being abducted from her home by a complete stranger.

Blair was different. He knew Lash’s past, knew about his childhood and he knew why he felt compelled to kill. And that meant that, in some small way, Blair held some power over Lash himself. Lash might be about to kill him, but there was no way in hell that Blair was going to just sit there and go quietly. He’d throw everything he could at Lash before he died, and make damn sure that, in the end, Lash found no pleasure in the act of murder. 

Not this time.

Lash was about to discover that his victims could fight back.

 

~*~*~

 

Jim was just starting to think that maybe he’d guessed wrong, that he’d thrown away Blair’s only chance for survival, when he heard it.

“You really think you can be me? What's my…” 

Yes!

Blair’s voice, strong and clear, reached the very edge of his hearing, and Jim pushed his hearing further than he’d ever dared before, desperate to work out where the precious voice was coming from.

“Come in.” Simon’s voice shouting right next to his ear deafened him and Jim winced, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain in his head as he pulled out his earpiece, ripping it from its power supply and dumping it onto the metal grate he was crouching behind without answering Banks.  
Blair was close by, and once his ears had stopped ringing from the blast of sound Jim tuned into him again.

“You can't be me. Only I think what I think, feel what I feel.” 

Jim scanned the building in front of him. The old Bloxham Shipping site had been closed down for years - was scheduled for demolition in a few months, actually - but that was where the sound was coming from, and he checked out all the darkened windows, searching for some sign of exactly where in the building Blair was. It was a huge, cavernous place, and even searching that one building could take Jim too long if he didn’t know exactly where to look.

Then he saw it - a faint, flickering light - like a moving flashlight, or candles maybe, in one of the windows on the etched windows on the top floor. 

Bingo. 

Jim ran, listening to the sounds of Lash’s growing anger from the room that he was now just a few hundred yards away from, and praying that he wasn’t going to be too late.

“I can be you! I can be...” 

 

~*~*~

 

“...You! Me. I...” Blair watched as Lash struggled with his confusion, tripped up by his own angry words. When Lash turned confused eyes on him Blair shook his head and, smiling at his captor with cold satisfaction.

“No,” he whispered almost silently. You can’t do it, can you? You can’t really be me. You don’t know anything about me. You’re not me, and you never will be.

“Shut up, man,” Lash warned, apparently taking Blair’s silence as a submission, because he smiled slightly as he went back to preparing the sedative. But the moment Lash had started to stir the liquid in his hand, Blair began again. 

“You think you know who I am? I know more about you.” Lash grinned his disbelief, casting condescending eyes at Blair, and Blair smiled back - a cold, angry little smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Lash had no idea how much research they’d actually done once they’d realized who David Lash really was. 

That horrific, heart wrenching interview with Ernie Lash, where Blair had actually felt sorry for the poor, neglected child. Afterwards Blair had wished too late that he hadn’t sat in on the interview, that he hadn’t heard his father uncaringly detail exactly what his wife had done to her only living son. 

It was ironic, really, that the interview had provided him with all the ammunition he needed to torment the now grown child. “Poor little Homer,” he taunted, and saw the immediate flinch in Lash’s shoulders. 

“No.” 

“Your pet duck. Why'd you kill him? Why'd you kill your brother?” 

Lash’s voice was coming in gasps, and the killer hunched over as if he’d taken a physical blow to the stomach. “You are ruining this.” 

That’s the idea.

“Why'd you rub filth all over yourself?” Blair shouted, as Lash put up his hand again to ward off Blair’s attack.

“Shut up!” he screamed, advancing on Blair with wide eyes, looking for all the world like a six-year old child having a temper tantrum. 

Blair ignored him. “Why did you make mommy punish you?” The emotions were running clear across Lash’s face now as Blair spoke. Rage, horror and pain all flashed through the killer’s eyes as he pursed his lips together, body trembling with barely contained fury. “You know, if you had just been a good little boy - a good little Davey - mama wouldn't have had to have scrubbed you in all those hot baths!” 

One hand clutched into his fake curls as if to tear the wig off his head, Lash launched himself at Blair, whimpering as he pulled Blair’s head back by his hair before holding him down to the chair and pinching his nose shut. 

Blair had time for one second of utter, mind-numbing terror before the fluid began cascading into his throat, a seemingly never-ending stream of disgustingly bitter liquid that he tried desperately to spit out, but there was simply too much of it. 

He coughed once as some of the liquid ended up in his lungs, but after the cough his body reflexively tried for another breath of air that brought with it yet more liquid, and Blair knew he’d swallowed too much, however hard he’d tried not to. Lash clamped Blair’s jaw shut, refusing to let him breathe, massaging his throat in a twisted caress to try and make him swallow the rest of it.

Blair’s lungs were burning for air, his throat still trying to finish the coughing fit it had begun, and he could feel his shoulders convulsing as his body tried desperately to rid itself of the liquid he had inhaled. 

“Police! Freeze!”

An unexpected voice suddenly echoed across the room and Blair froze, wondering wildly if this was some kind of bizarre hallucination, a last flickering of wasted hope before death, but then Lash hesitated as well, pulling slightly away from Blair as he faced the door with a suppressed gasp.

Jim!

Blair forced himself to hold still as Lash’s hand ran down over his face, trying not to draw any of Lash’s attention back on himself. Then Lash backed off, watching Jim, and as soon as he dared, Blair pulled his head away from Lash’s grasp, spitting out what little of the liquid he hadn’t already swallowed. 

Pulling in much needed air, Blair twisted to try and see Jim, to try and work out what was happening, but even that small movement sent the room spinning around him, and Blair’s heart sank.

He’d swallowed too much of the sedative.

 

~*~*~

 

Jim moved steadily down the stairs, his gun never wavering from its lock on David Lash. He was aiming at center mass, determined that if he needed to shoot, this psycho wasn’t going to have the chance to get up. 

No last minute change of heart, no killers being disabled before making another, last-ditch attempt to kill their victims; this ended here and now.

Then the world fell out from under him.

With a stunned cry he tumbled down the last few steps, landing hard on his side, his gun falling out of his grip and skittering away across the cement floor. Lash took the chance he was offered, throwing himself at the gun and in spite of the shock still echoing through his body Jim forced himself up, intercepting Lash before he could get near the weapon, and using his own body to propel them both against the back wall. 

The impact was brutal, sending both men crashing to the floor. Lash was first to get to his feet. Lash’s fingers twisted into Jim’s police vest as he tried to stop Jim from getting up, the man surprisingly strong in spite of his smaller frame. In the end, though, Jim prevailed, pulling the man to his feet by his jacket and slamming him into the back wall, ignoring the crazily swinging wheelchair that kept knocking into his back.

Some small part of his mind that wasn’t occupied with the fight noted that he’d done this exact same thing to Sandburg the day they’d first met, and then Lash apparently managed to get his feet properly beneath him, because suddenly Jim was being pushed back across the room, and with an inhuman scream Lash threw them both through a pair of glass doors on the other side of the room. 

The glass shattered around Jim, tiny slivers embedding themselves in his clothes, his hair and across his face, but Jim kept his hands locked in Lash’s, determined that he would not be able to get loose and return to finish what he’d started with Sandburg.

For an all too brief moment Jim landed on his feet, but his legs wouldn’t support him and they both crashed to the ground - which promptly collapsed under their combined weight.

Realizing with horror that he was falling too far to be even just one floor down, Jim let go of his hold on Lash and tried to turn to protect his head, but before he could get very far they both hit a rotting floor of wood and corrugated card, which splintered, sending them both crashing further down through the building. They landed hard, the impact knocking the air out of Jim as he tumbled onto a pile of abandoned debris, pieces of the ceiling coming down around them.

Jim was dimly aware of his body rolling sideways, momentum carrying him off the debris they’d landed on and onto the hard floor. Lash fell on top of him before rolling sideways, forcing a dazed groan out of him from where he lay face down on the ground, his whole body screaming in pain.

 

 

~*~*~

 

Jim!

The sounds of crashing wood and shattering glass sent waves of dread through Blair where he lay slumped in the chair, unable to even keep his eyes open. 

He wanted to move, to help Jim, to do something, but the room was still spinning and he felt sick. There was a disconcerting numbness spreading down his limbs, and in the end he just allowed his head to fall forward, no longer able to find the strength to stay awake.

 

~*~*~

 

Again Lash was the first to move, scrambling to his feet and stumbling over Jim’s prone form before disappearing off into the warehouse. Only Jim’s training managed to get him to his feet, and even then it was a struggle; dozens of separate pains all announcing themselves as he reached behind him to pull out his backup weapon. 

Jim forced himself into a stumbling jog, both hands wrapped around the gun as he followed Lash into the darkness. Bits of wood and glass clung to his clothes and skin, thousands of splinters that fell onto the floor around him as he moved, frantically trying to work out where Lash had gone. Afraid that Lash was headed back up to where Sandburg was still chained to the dentist’s chair, Jim listened intently, gun constantly moving to cover the shadows as he quickly checked and dismissed each possible hiding place. But the building was too dark, too full of confusing echoes for Jim to fully trust his sentinel hearing. 

At first, Jim thought they’d fallen right down to the basement of the building - his back was certainly hurting enough to make him think they’d fallen three floors, but he turned a corner and saw that he was actually still one floor up, a railing to his left giving Jim unrestricted access down to the floor at street level below. 

He’d seen two separate sets of stairs when he’d first made his way into the building, and it stood to reason that Lash knew every inch of the place like the back of his hand, if he’d been staying here all the months he’d been hiding out in Cascade. Trying to orient himself, to work out where the stairs were and whether Lash could have made it back to Sandburg to finish off the job Jim had interrupted, Jim carried on moving through the dilapidated corridor. 

Something glinting on the floor just a few feet ahead of Jim caught his attention, and he looked closer to see light reflecting off a jagged piece of glass sticking up from the floor. About to dismiss the glass as inconsequential, he hesitated when he realized something was moving beyond it.

Frowning, it took Jim three valuable seconds to realize that he was staring at Lash, but Lash wasn’t behind the glass - he was being reflected in it, raising a large piece of wood that he was about to bring down on the back of Jim’s head.

Jim spun round to find Lash just a few steps behind him, and brought the gun up to shoot the psycho before his blow could land, but Lash had somehow anticipated the movement, changing the direction of his swing and knocking the gun out of Jim’s hand. The impact sent pain screaming through Jim’s arm, spinning the detective around as the gun fell over the railing and down to the next floor. His body already struggling from the initial crash through the rotten floors, Jim fell, pain sending him to his knees against the railing. Part of the railing collapsed under his weight, and Jim was barely able to stop himself from going over the side. 

For a second the pain shooting through him blocked out everything else and, expecting Lash to continue his attack, Jim just managed to bring his arms up to protect his head. But when the anticipated blow didn’t happen, Jim pulled himself together once more and looked up to realize that Lash was running desperately down the staircase, again trying to reach Jim’s fallen weapon. There was no way Jim would be able to beat him down the staircase…unless…

Oh, shit. 

Getting unsteadily to his feet, Jim had time to ask himself what the hell he thought he was doing before he jumped over the edge of the floor where the railing had once been, free-falling the twenty-odd feet to the level below. 

As the ground rushed up to meet him, Jim desperately recalled everything he’d ever learned in the rangers, trying to force his body to relax on impact before dropping into a roll as if he’d parachuted down. The shockwave that shuddered through his legs turned the roll into more of an ungainly sprawl, knocking the breath from his lungs in a pained gasp, but Jim’s aim had been true, and he came out of the roll barely a foot away from his weapon. 

Seeing that Lash was only a few steps away from him, and already leaning down to sweep up a piece of metal piping that lay on the floor by his feet, Jim scrambled over to his gun, sweeping it up and adjusting his grip even as Lash raised the pipe with a scream, swinging to bring it down on Jim’s head.

Coming up from the ground on one knee in the perfect firing position as he’d been taught, Jim raised the gun, took swift, careful aim - and fired. 

Lash fell backwards, jerked by the bullet and the pipe fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. Jim fired again, and again, and again, rising smoothly up from his crouch still with perfect aim and still firing, even though he’d known before the first bullet hit that his aim was true.

In fact, Jim kept firing until his clip was empty, and until the force of the bullets had driven Lash almost six feet backwards, his body falling out of sight into a hole down to the basement level.

Only then did Jim lower his weapon, aware of his own heart racing with adrenaline and a single-minded fury flooding through him that he hadn’t felt since facing down Danny Choi’s killer. 

He moved over to the hole in the floor and aimed his gun at Lash’s body where it lay sprawled on the ground, the corpse’s eyes staring sightlessly up at him with an expression of shock on his face - and five bullet holes in his chest.

Even knowing all that, Jim still kept his gun trained on the body, as he listened for a heartbeat and searched for any sign that Lash might, somehow, still be breathing.

There was nothing.

With a relieved sigh, Jim finally lowered his weapon, taking a step forward and staring down at the man who had thought he could murder Blair Sandburg.  
Jim stood there, standing watch over the serial killer’s body until the protests of his own body brought him back to the present. He turned wearily away from the sight, holstering his gun and slowly making his way back over the rubble, searching for a staircase or something he could use - preferably one that wouldn’t collapse under his weight - that would take him back up to Blair.

Jesus, the kid must be going crazy, Jim thought. Sandburg must know that the outcome of Jim’s desperate fight with Lash would determine whether Blair lived or died – in fact, whether they both did. Jim had seen enough of the way Sandburg was restrained when he’d first entered that candle-lit room, to know that Blair would have been able to do nothing but sit there, and listen as the sounds of the fight echoed up to him.

Then Jim remembered that he’d walked in on Lash pouring some kind of liquid down Sandburg’s throat, a liquid with the same smell that he’d noticed in the loft after Blair’s abduction, and he forced himself to pick up the pace despite a leg that hurt with every step and a hand he could barely feel from where he’d been struck with the wood. He dearly wanted to just sit down and wait for Simon to arrive with the cavalry, but he knew that if he did that he would have trouble getting up again, and he needed to get back to Sandburg, to reassure the kid that it was over, and to make sure that he was all right.

Two doses of that sedative this close together couldn’t be a good thing.

 

~*~*~

 

It seemed to take forever before Jim finally stumbled across the old, dusty staircase that led to the upper floors. One hand resting on the rickety handrail, Jim looked the steps over dubiously. He had serious misgivings that they would be able to carry his weight – some of them had already rotted away, and Jim had fallen through more than enough floors already today, thank you very much. 

Unfortunately, he couldn’t see any other way back to Sandburg, so in the end he began moving gingerly up the stairs, testing each one before putting his full weight on it. 

For the first time since beginning his search on the docks, Jim regretted breaking his earpiece instead of just turning it off. At the time he’d done whatever it took to stop Simon’s voice from deafening his sensitive hearing and cutting off the tenuous connection he’d made to Sandburg, but now he had no way to tell Simon that the danger was over, let alone where they were. 

Eventually, though, he knew Simon would track them down. The Captain would have been searching frantically since the moment Jim cut the connection, and even if the gunshots hadn’t been loud enough for them to hear, the dockside area wasn’t that big.

Jim’s internal monologue kept him distracted as he climbed first one set of stairs, then began on the second. The adrenaline rush from the fight was fading fast, leaving him exhausted and sore. A thousand small bruises joined together to make his entire body protest every step, but finally he got within shouting distance of the room where Sandburg was being held.

“Sandburg!” he shouted loudly, listening intently for the expected response. None came. “Sandburg?” he tried again. “It’s Jim – I’m on my way.”

Still there was no response.

Shit.

He forced himself to climb faster, eventually reaching the doorway, where he stared in horrified fascination at the scene before him. 

There were candles everywhere – most still lit and bathing the room in an eerie, flickering glow; though some lay extinguished where they’d been knocked over in the fight. It was a miracle they hadn’t started a fire during the fight.

He couldn’t see much of Sandburg. Slumped down in the chair he was chained to, Jim could see little more than the back of his head. Alarmed at his friend’s stillness, Jim stumbled quickly down the stairs, only just remembering to jump the last couple of steps before he could fall again.

Then Jim was crouching down in front of Sandburg, taking in his slack features and the lingering chemical smell in the air, with growing concern. Blair’s head had fallen forward onto his chest, and Jim raised it gently, holding Sandburg by the chin. Carefully lifting Blair’s eyelids, Jim took in the dilated pupils. Sandburg’s pulse was steady but much too slow for Jim’s liking, and he cursed softly, again wishing that he had some way to call Simon and get an ambulance here quickly.

Damn it, Carolyn had said that chloral hydrate only helped to subdue Lash’s victims; that they had all been conscious when they were drowned. Why, then, was Sandburg out cold? But if this was his second dose in just a few hours, as Jim suspected, then that might explain it. 

Carolyn hadn’t said anything about serious side effects to the drug, but then there was no reason for her to. None of Lash’s other victims had lived long enough for side effects to be an issue. But wasn’t it true that almost any drug could do serious damage – could even be fatal - if enough was ingested?

Feeling panic begin to crowd in with his exhaustion, Jim cursed again that there was no way to contact Simon, then it dawned on him. 

His cell phone!

He’d switched it off before beginning the search so that it didn’t go off and give away his position, but since then he’d forgotten all about it. 

Pulling the cell out of his pocket, he switched it on and prayed that it hadn’t been damaged in the fight. Miraculously, although it took longer than he would have liked to turn itself on and find a signal, eventually Jim heard the welcome jingle of the phone connecting. 

He quickly dialed Simon’s number, waiting impatiently for the man to answer.

“Jim?” Simon’s frantic voice echoed down the phone line. “Are you alright? What the hell happened?”

“Thank God,” Jim muttered on hearing his Captain’s voice. “Lash is dead, Simon,” he began, hissing in pain when he shifted to kneel down on the floor by Sandburg’s side. “But Sandburg needs an ambulance.”

“Jesus Jim, he’s not…”

“No!” Jim broke in to reassure Simon before he could complete the sentence, not wanting to even admit to himself how close the drowning had come to being a reality. “Lash didn’t have a chance to try and drown him. He’s been drugged – he’s unconscious.”

“Where are you?”

“The top floor of the old Bloxham Shipping building. But for God’s sake be careful. This place is a death trap.”

“We’re only a few minutes away, Jim,” Simon replied.

“Just get the paramedics here,” Jim asked before ending the call. He sat in silence for a moment, never taking his eyes of Sandburg, before levering himself up onto his feet and leaning over his partner. 

“Sandburg?” he spoke quietly, patting Blair’s face gently to try and rouse him when he got no response. He called louder, almost giving up before the quietest of moans reached his ears, and Sandburg’s eyes opened; just barely. Jim couldn’t have stopped the grin from spreading on his face if his life depended on it. “Hey partner,” he said, patting Sandburg’s cheek again in relief, but he was completely unprepared for Blair’s reaction.

One moment Blair was still except for eyelids that were struggling just to open, and the next his heart rate went wild and Blair cried out, muttering incoherently as he flinched away from Jim, cringing into the chair and bringing his hands up as if to try and ward him off. 

The chains stopped him from moving very far, though, and Jim gasped in surprise before moving forward and grabbing Sandburg’s hands in his. “Hey! It’s okay, it’s okay!” but his words only seemed to agitate Blair further. “Sandburg!” Jim shouted, raising his voice to be heard over Blair’s muttering, which even he couldn’t make out. “Blair! Calm down! It’s me. It’s Jim!”

Staring at his wild-eyed partner, Jim was beginning to despair of getting through to Sandburg at all but gradually Blair’s racing heart began to calm, and Jim found himself being watched with something akin to recognition. 

“There you go,” Jim said as Blair blinked slowly at him. “You with me?” he asked gently, and after a few seconds Blair squeezed his hand. 

“…Jim…?” he whispered, and Jim grinned in relief. 

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m sorry I startled you. Try and stay with me, okay? Simon’s on his way with an ambulance.” But Blair didn’t respond to that at all, and Jim ducked his head down so he could get a good look at Sandburg’s half-lidded eyes. Now that the panic was apparently over, the drug was taking hold again, and Jim could see that Blair was struggling to keep his eyes open. 

Listening closely, Jim could hear Blair’s heart rate slowing again, and he squeezed Blair’s hands hard. “Blair? I need you to stay awake for me,” he said sternly.

After a moment, Blair nodded drunkenly, his movements uncoordinated. “…Lash…” he whispered.

“He’s dead,” Jim reassured him, ignoring the wave of savage satisfaction that the statement caused.

There was a strangled noise from Blair that sounded like a sob, and then Blair moved his hands slightly. “…off…” he muttered, the chains rattling gently with the slight movement.

Jim looked around the room, unable to see a key but unwilling to leave Blair’s side to do a proper search. A pair of pliers lay abandoned on the floor a few feet away, and Jim wondered briefly what the hell Lash had used those for before turning back to Sandburg. “There aren’t any keys,” he said. “We’ll have to get some bolt cutters…” but Blair didn’t seem to be listening anymore.

In a final, last-ditch attempt to keep Sandburg awake, Jim leaned forward and took Blair’s face in his hands. The action startled Blair again, and his eyes flew open in shock. “Blair? Are you hurt anywhere?” Jim asked clearly, and Blair swallowed once before answering. “…drug…” he said softly, and Jim nodded.

“I know. Anywhere else?”

“Head hurts…” Blair added, and Jim frowned before running one hand gently up into Blair’s hair, fingers searching carefully for a head injury. It didn’t take long to find, and Blair moaned a soft protest when Jim found the bloody lump up near Blair’s temple, his fingers coming away with flakes of dried blood.

“Sorry,” Jim said, wincing in sympathy and removing his hand, absently patting Blair on the shoulder. “Where the hell is Simon?” he muttered to himself, glancing impatiently at the door. By the time he turned back to Sandburg, Blair was unconscious again, and this time completely unresponsive to Jim’s attempts to wake him.

Unwilling to simply sit and wait, Jim turned his attention to the yellow cloth hanging loose around Blair’s neck. Twisting it until he could get access to the knot, Jim began loosening it, at least determined to get rid of that even if he couldn’t do anything about the chains themselves. 

The material had tightened itself to the point where Jim was beginning to think he’d need to cut it off, but eventually his perseverance paid off and the knot gave. Pulling it free, Jim gave in to his instinctive need to get the makeshift gag as far away from Sandburg as possible, throwing it over to the other side of the room.

“Ellison?” Simon’s deep voice suddenly echoed up from below, and Jim sighed in relief before replying. 

“Up here, Simon!” he yelled, listening to the resulting commotion as Simon and his team appeared in the doorway. “For God’s sake watch those stairs,” Jim snapped.

“Jesus Christ, Jim,” Simon breathed, staring around the room at the candles and mannequins. “What the hell happened here?”

Jim ignored the question, his mind solely focused on Sandburg. “Where are the paramedics?” he asked and Simon sighed, reaching for the cigar in his pocket as he answered.

“Uniforms are showing them the way up. This place should be condemned.” He gestured to Sandburg. “How’s he doing?”

“We’re going to need bolt cutters to get him out of these chains,” Jim commented. “I can’t find the key – Lash might have it on him.”

Frowning, Simon crouched down next to Jim. “Where is Lash?” he asked as paramedics and uniformed officers began streaming into the room. 

“His body’s in the basement,” Jim said dismissively before turning to the paramedics.

The next few minutes saw a rush of activity around Blair, as he was checked over and a set of bolt cutters were found from the back of one of the police cars. Jim was sidelined, pushed out of the way as the chains were cut off and the paramedics carefully eased Sandburg to the floor. 

Jim’s concerns only grew as he watched because, however gentle the paramedics were, it was still unnerving to see his normally energetic partner sprawled across the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. He was tempted to go to Sandburg’s side even though he knew he’d only get in the way, and something of that must have shown in his face because Simon was suddenly back beside him, drawing him away from the scene.

“What happened here, Jim?” Simon asked quietly as, moving around them, a police photographer began systematically documenting the scene.

Jim sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair before replying. “This guy was insane, Simon,” he said angrily. “How did we not see it? He was right there in our faces all that time. We should have seen it!”

Simon frowned, putting his cigar in his mouth and glancing over to Sandburg. “We weren’t expecting this to happen, Jim,” he said, his tone conciliatory.

“Well we should have been more careful,” Jim snapped back, his ire at having come so close to losing Sandburg bubbling over at his superior. “Are you seriously telling me that no-one even checked what Dr Bates was meant to look like? After everything that happened with Kincaid, precinct security was supposed to be tightened.”

But Simon refused to be bated. “I know, Jim, and I’m going to make damn sure that something like this never happens again, but right now I’m just glad that we got this guy and it all turned out okay.”

At that, Jim saw red. “Okay? We screwed up and Sandburg was nearly killed!”

“But he wasn’t,” Simon stressed, raising his voice to match Jim’s. “He’s going to be all right, thanks to you. You found him before Lash could do anything serious and the paramedics will make sure he’s okay. It’s over, Jim.”

Intending to continue the argument, Jim hesitated as he noticed one of the paramedics placing an oxygen mask over Sandburg’s nose and mouth. “Hey, is he all right?” he called over, taking a step in their direction.

“We’re getting ready to transport, detective,” the paramedic replied. “He needs to be admitted for observation so we can check his tox levels.”

Jim sighed in dismay at the news. “He’s got a head injury,” he added suddenly. “I couldn’t keep him conscious long enough to find out how bad it was.”

“Try not to worry, detective,” the medic replied without looking up, intent on his task as he fitted a blood pressure cuff around Blair’s arm. “We’ll take good care of him.”

“Jim,” Simon warned from behind him. “I still need a report from you on what happened here.”

With one last look at Sandburg, Jim reluctantly turned away and rejoined Simon. He made sure there was no-one within reasonable earshot before beginning his report. “I heard Blair talking to Lash while I was searching the dockside,” he explained.

“You heard them while they were in here?” Simon echoed, his eyebrows raised in surprise, and Jim nodded. 

“I followed their voices here, and arrived in time to see Lash forcing the sedative into Sandburg. He stopped when I drew my weapon, but that damn step gave way underneath me and I fell. Lash and I fought, then I shot him.

Simon frowned, glancing over at Jim’s weapon where it lay abandoned on the floor by the shattered flight of stairs. “Hang on a minute. If Lash was here with Sandburg when you arrived, and your gun is up here, how did his body end up in the basement?”

Pushing away from where he was leaning against the wall by the macabre mannequins, Jim joined Simon at the base of the stairs. “Lash pulled me through these glass doors in the fight and the floor gave way – we ended up in the basement.”

Simon stepped over the widespread pile of glass shards to peer down into the hole where the floor had collapsed. He stood silent for a few seconds before turning back to Jim and slowly taking his cigar out of his mouth, aghast. “You fell down there?” he asked, gesturing at the hole with his cigar.

Jim nodded.

“And you’re telling me you weren’t hurt,” he clarified. 

“It’s only a few bruises, Simon. I’ll be stiff tomorrow but I’m okay.”

The paramedic interrupted before Simon could reply. “We’re ready to transport, Captain Banks,” he said, and Jim looked past him to see that Sandburg was now strapped to a gurney and ready to be carried out of the building. Worried that Sandburg was still unconscious, Jim glanced at Simon who, shaking his head in exasperation, waved Jim away.

“You’re on administrative leave for the next three days anyway while IA investigates the shooting,” he said. “Go with Sandburg to the hospital. Make sure he’s all right and for God’s sake get yourself checked over as well.”

Without reply, Jim immediately headed over to Sandburg’s side but, as he followed the paramedics out of the room, he could hear Simon muttering behind him. “Man falls through two floors and he says he’s fine. Ellison must think he’s Superman or something.”

 

~*~*~

 

Jim was removed from Blair’s side as soon as they arrived at the hospital. As much as he wanted to stay, Jim went to the waiting room without protest, his concern at Sandburg’s continued stillness and gray pallor meaning that he didn’t want to distract the doctors for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

Once in the waiting room he paced restlessly, ignoring his body’s pleas for him to sit down as he alternated his glances between the door and his watch, anxiously awaiting any news. He was almost tempted to extend his hearing, to try and track Sandburg through the hospital, but even just listening past the waiting room delivered a cacophony of noise – people crying, sobbing, laughing, babies screaming – all of which, combined with his exhaustion, threatened to send him spiraling into a zone. So he was forced to wait impatiently for answers.

Eventually, his constant motion attracted the attention of a nearby nurse, who took a close look at his torn clothing and the stiff way he was moving and dragged him off to an examination room.

Jim endured the attention with bad grace, his exhaustion the only thing keeping a lid on his temper – he was simply too tired to argue. Eventually the nurse took pity on his repeated questions about Sandburg and, after bandaging his hand and writing out a prescription for painkillers, she took him up to Sandburg’s room herself.

To Jim’s heartfelt relief, Sandburg was conscious; an IV running into his right arm and the oxygen mask still in place over his face. When the nurse left to find a doctor, leaving Jim with instructions that Sandburg needed to rest, Jim stood in the doorway and drank in the welcome sight of his partner – alive and in one piece, head tilted back on the hospital bed and eyes closed. But the soft sound of Jim walking into the room must have alerted him, because almost before Jim had taken two steps Sandburg’s eyes opened, and he slowly turned his head towards the door.

Jim smiled in relief as Blair tracked his movement with unfocused eyes, watching silently as Jim pulled a chair up close to the bed and eased himself into it with a soft groan of pleasure at finally being able to stop. “Hey Chief,” he said quietly. “How are you feeling?”

Slowly Blair reached up and pulled the oxygen mask down, though Jim noted with a small frown that it took him two tries to do so. “Awful,” he said softly, following the statement with the slightest of wry smiles. “But I’m here.”

The quiet relief in Blair’s voice lifted Jim’s spirits, doing more to reassure his soul that Blair was all right than a dozen doctor’s opinions ever could. But with a second, closer glance, Jim noticed that Blair’s hands were shaking; a fine trembling in his limbs that extended up through Blair’s entire body. Jim’s eyes narrowed and, extending his senses even closer, he saw that Blair’s pupils were still dilated, and he could hear the slight, irregular hitch in his breathing. 

Oh yeah, Jim thought resignedly. Sandburg might think he feels awful now, but he was still flying high on the effects of the sedative. If Jim’s own experiences with drugs meant anything, he had a feeling that Sandburg was going to get a hell of a lot worse before the drugs fully left his system. 

“Detective Ellison?” The quiet voice emanating from the doorway came as a surprise to Jim, and he grimaced as he turned to face the doctor who was waiting there. He was slipping - years spent in Special Ops meant that he should have heard the doctor coming from a mile away, not to mention the edge that his sentinel abilities usually gave him. Smothering a yawn, Jim turned back to an increasingly sleepy-looking Blair. Jim leaned forward and carefully replaced the oxygen mask onto Blair’s face. 

“Get some rest, Sandburg,” he said. “I’m going to talk to the doctor - I’ll be back in a minute.”

Blair nodded, and Jim headed out of the room.

The doctor watched Jim approach with a raised eyebrow, looking him up and down, and taking in the bandaged hand and the mess of Jim’s ripped clothes. “Do you need treatment, detective?” he asked, without preamble.

Jim shook his head, lifting the folded prescription out of his jacket pocket as proof that he’d been seen. “No, I’m fine. How’s Sandburg doing?”

“We put a rush on the lab, and the results have come back on his tox screen. He tested positive for high levels of chloral hydrate which I’m told you were aware of. To be frank, he ingested more of the drug than I’m comfortable with, but it wasn’t quite up to the levels where we would consider it an overdose.”

“So he’s going to be all right?” Jim prompted, folding his arms and leaning back against the door frame.

“I don’t foresee any serious complications,” the doctor continued, “but Mister Sandburg is going to be feeling pretty miserable for the next few hours.”

That made Jim frown and he straightened up, ignoring the twinge in his back as he glanced back into the room. “How so?”

“Chloral hydrate works as a sedative. It depresses the central nervous system,” the doctor - Doctor Johnson according to his badge - explained. “Although I know he seems coherent now, the chemicals are still heavily affecting his system, and he’s probably going to sleep for a long while before he’s fully aware of what’s happening around him. Unfortunately, considering the high levels he ingested, I expect to see some fairly unpleasant side effects as the drug runs its course.”

“Like what?” Jim asked in alarm, and Doctor Johnson consulted his notes before replying. 

“Well, common side effects are nausea and drowsiness, which is unpleasant but not too serious; but signs of an overdose can include slurred speech, seizures and breathing problems. I don’t think he’s ingested enough to cause seizures, but we’re going to keep him in overnight just to be sure.”

Jim nodded, well aware of the hitch in Sandburg’s breathing that he’d noticed earlier. If Jim hadn’t already decided to stay at the hospital until Blair was discharged, this news would have clinched it. “Can I stay with him?” he asked bluntly, his expression making it quite plain that he was only prepared to accept one answer.

Thankfully, Doctor Johnson smiled and saved himself an argument. “Of course. Quite aside from his physical well-being, I’m told that he was the final victim of the yellow scarf killer?” At Jim’s nod, he continued, “The paramedics told me some of the circumstances of his rescue - I suspect that when Mister Sandburg is aware enough to fully understand what’s happened he isn’t going to want to be alone.”

Johnson’s quiet words sobered Jim, and he repressed a shudder at his own memories of the warehouse. He’d only heard a little of Blair’s face-off with Lash - what must it have been like to actually live through it? 

“I’ve explained all this to Mister Sandburg, but I don’t think he really took it in. Do I need to add that he isn’t up to a police interview right now?”

Jim shook his head, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at the doctor. “I’m not here as a cop, Doctor Johnson,” he clarified. “Blair’s my roommate.”

A single eyebrow raised in surprise was the doctor’s only response before he nodded. “Very well. I’ll have a cot brought in for you as well, detective. If you’re planning on being here all night, those chairs aren’t very comfortable and,” he commented wryly, “you look like you need almost as much rest as your friend.” But as Jim was about to protest that he was perfectly fine, Johnson held up a hand to cut him off. “No arguments, detective. I have enough work to do tonight without you passing out and giving me yet another patient to deal with. Believe me, I only have selfish intentions.”

Jim swallowed his protest with an awkward smile. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of sitting in a plastic chair all night - or at least for what was left of it. He shook hands with the doctor and thanked him, before heading down the corridor away from Sandburg’s room to call Simon with an update. The news that Blair was okay was greeted with profound relief by Banks, who promised to stop by the following morning.

By the time Jim was back in Sandburg’s room, the cot had already been delivered, and Jim crawled onto it gratefully, sinking into the thin mattress with a groan of indulgent relief. The heart monitor sang the steady, regular beat of Sandburg’s heart, reassuring Jim that his friend was sleeping peacefully and, even though it occurred to Jim that he probably should have found somewhere to take a shower in the hope of loosening his muscles before they began to seize up from the fight, he was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

 

~*~*~

 

Even though he’d been asleep, some part of Jim must have been tuned into Blair’s heart monitor, because he was woken almost as soon as the rhythm began to change. 

It still took Jim a few seconds to orient himself and, as he came fully awake, he just had time to really regret not showering when his muscles screamed out against attempts to move even a few inches.

Then he heard Sandburg’s voice, heard his own name being forced tightly through gritted teeth, and Jim was up and across the small space between the beds almost before he was aware of moving.

“Sandburg?” Jim asked softly, laying a hand on Blair’s arm and taking in the other man’s pallor with growing alarm.

Sandburg was sheet white, eyes scrunched closed and every muscle in his body tight with tension. The veins in his neck stood out sharply and for a terrible second Jim thought he was having a seizure, until Sandburg moaned and opened his eyes, looking dazedly up at Jim with watery eyes.

“Blair?” Jim asked, concern making his tone sharper than he’d intended. “What’s wrong?”

Blair was trying to sit up in bed, levering himself up on an arm that Jim could see wasn’t going to support his weight for long. Before Blair could fall Jim stepped forward, placing one hand flat on Blair’s back for support as he reached for the bed controls with his other hand.

Using the controls to raise the head of the bed, Jim waited until it was almost fully upright before easing Blair back down against the cushions. “What’s the matter?” Jim asked again. 

Sandburg put his head down, hair falling in front of his face as he held a shaking hand to his mouth, his breathing shallow and rapid. “I think I’m going to be sick,” Blair muttered, his words running together, and Jim rubbed a hand up and down Blair’s back in mute sympathy.

“All right, just take it easy,” Jim said gently, reaching over for the half-full cup of water on the table by the head of the bed. “Here,” he continued, pressing the plastic cup into Sandburg’s hand. “Try and sip this.”

Blindly Blair took the cup, but his hand was shaking too badly and water quickly began to spill over the sides. Immediately, Jim placed his hands over Blair’s, steadying the cup and helping Blair raise it to his lips. Blair took a few tentative sips before pushing the cup away, shaking his head.

Jim placed the cup back on the table as Blair ran a hand over his face, sighing with one hand creeping protectively over his stomach. “Sorry, man,” he whispered softly.

“Don’t worry,” Jim reassured his friend, surprised at the apology and the distress in Blair’s voice. “Try and take it easy. This’ll pass. Deep breaths, okay?”

The barest hint of a smile passed over Blair’s lips. “Isn’t that usually my line?” he asked quietly, and Jim chuckled.

“Well, consider this payback for all the tests, Sandburg,” he said with a grin.

Then Blair gasped, almost doubling over and swallowing convulsively, his face scrunched up in pain. 

“Hey!” Jim said in alarm, moving his grip to Blair’s shoulder and bending slightly to lean in closer to his friend. “You want me to get a doctor?” he asked, but Blair shook his head.

“No!” he exclaimed grimly from between clenched teeth. “No more drugs.”

For a moment Jim was tempted to call the nurse anyway, concerned at Blair’s pallor but he quickly decided against it. He couldn’t blame Blair for not wanting any more drugs after what Lash had done, and it was doubtful that they’d want to give him anything that might react with the chloral hydrate anyway. “Just breathe, Sandburg,” he repeated. “The doctor said this might happen, remember?”

Blair shook his head. “Not really,” he admitted.

“It’s a side effect of the sedative,” Jim explained. “But it shouldn’t last too long. The worst is over, okay?”

Blair shuddered at that, Jim’s words apparently bringing back bad memories of earlier that night. He was silent for a long time, then almost too softly even for Jim to hear, he spoke. “I thought I was dead.”

Jim closed his eyes at that, mentally cursing Lash, his own senses and whoever had been stupid enough to allow Lash into the station without properly checking his credentials for ever putting Blair in this position. He was just a grad student, only supposed to be riding with Jim as an observer - his work should never have put him in such danger. Jim couldn’t even reason that this was some kind of fluke; that it would only ever happen this once, since they’d already been through it with Kincaid.

Wishing he could reassure Blair that this would never happen again, but knowing that it was a promise he simply couldn’t make, Jim tightened his grip on Blair’s shoulder, pulling him forward gently until Blair’s bowed head was resting against Jim’s chest.

Shudders were running through Sandburg as the enormity of what had happened - and almost happened - began to fully dawn on him. 

“I know you must have been scared,” Jim began hesitantly, searching frantically for the words that would make things better for his partner. “And I wish this had never happened. But it’s over,” he stressed. “Lash is dead, and I found you, and you’re safe. I know you feel like shit now, Sandburg, but the drugs will wear off soon, and you’ll be able to start putting it behind you.”

Blair sighed deeply, showing no inclination to move from where he was resting against Jim. In turn, Jim took comfort from the fact that Blair still felt safe with him - even though it was because of Blair’s association with Jim that Lash had targeted him. 

Gently, Jim rested his chin down onto the top of Sandburg’s head, listening to the strange echo of the heart monitor beeping out a heartbeat that Jim could hear direct from its source.

It was over, and Jim knew that he needed to truly know that just as much as Blair did. He’d come so close to losing him; to losing the only person who knew how to help him control his senses as well as someone who, in just a few short weeks, had found his way into the select circle of Jim’s closest friends. Jim knew from bitter experience that the sick, dawning horror he’d felt on bursting into the loft and finding it ransacked was going to linger in his own nightmares for a long time to come.

Eventually Blair sniffed once and straightened up, throwing Jim an embarrassed grin before rubbing at suspiciously red eyes. “I was such an idiot,” he sighed again.

“Oh?” Jim asked gently? “How so?”

“I saw him,” Blair admitted. “I was at the university with Christine, and I saw his reflection in the car window. He was wearing that damn wig, and I knew he was coming after me. I should have gone directly to the station, or called you, or something. Anything. But I panicked…I went home because I felt safe there, but it was so stupid!” Blair leant backwards, collapsing into the pillows with a thump, his entire expression displaying his disgust at himself. “I knew Lash could break into the loft - he’d done it with every other person he’d killed, and man, have you seen the windows in the loft? A five-year old could break through those locks…” Blair trailed off, shaking his head. “Idiot,” he muttered again.

Jim hesitated, uncertain what to say for the best. A part of him was touched beyond words that Blair would think of the loft as a safe haven when he was scared, even if – yes - it would have made more sense if Blair had gone somewhere public, like the precinct, instead.

“I just…it didn’t seem real, you know?” Blair continued, running a hand over his mouth, his gaze fixed on the thin cotton blanket that covered him. “I mean, being stalked by a serial killer? It’s like something out of a nightmare, not something that happens in real life - not to anyone you know.” He frowned then, picking at the cotton over his legs. “I wonder if Susan Frasier thought that when he came for her,” Blair murmured quietly, his voice catching, and he closed his eyes, biting his lip to keep the emotion inside. 

Reaching down, Jim lifted his weight from the chair beneath him and scooted forward, bringing the chair as close to the hospital bed as he could get before sitting down again. “I’m not going to say that you were right to head home, Sandburg,” he began, wincing when Blair shuddered as another wave of reaction hit. “In the future if you’re in danger, or scared, I want you to come and find me straight away. Or if you can’t get hold of me for any reason,” he added, well aware that Blair had tried unsuccessfully to reach him while he was at the gym, “then you head to the station and you stay there.” 

Blair raised his hand to his face, pinching the corners of his eyes between his fingers even as tears of frustration and shame threatened to fall. Jim reached out and squeezed Blair’s shoulder tightly, forcing Blair to turn slightly in his direction and listen.

“But you’re forgetting something, Sandburg,” Jim stressed. “I heard you. When I was searching through the docks trying to find you I heard the things you said to Lash; the way you were taunting him, trying to push him off balance. You kept your head, and you did everything you could to stop him.”

Blair laughed; a horrible, broken choke of a laugh that sent ice through Jim’s veins. “That’s just it, Jim. I couldn’t do anything!” he snapped, his fingers forming a fist that twisted up the cotton blanket on the bed. “All I could do was just sit there and wait for him to finish it. He was going to kill me, Jim…he was going to kill me…” A sob sounded then, forcing its way through Blair’s lips even though Jim could see how desperately hard he was trying to hold it together. That single slip seemed to open the floodgates, because then Blair was curling into himself, sobbing, one hand clamped in front of his mouth as if to stop the sound.

Cursing silently, Jim reached out and folded Blair into his arms, holding him as he cried. Blair stiffened at first as if to pull away, embarrassed, but Jim just tightened his grip and slowly Blair relaxed, his sobs muffled by Jim’s t-shirt. 

“I heard you,” Jim repeated softly, his mouth just a few inches from Blair’s ears, safe in the knowledge that Blair could hear him. “I know you must have felt helpless, but you weren’t. You used your strongest weapon, Blair - words. All the things we’d learned from Lash’s father; you turned them back on him.”

“But it didn’t do any good,” Blair muttered, his breathing harsh and uneven.

“Yes, it did,” Jim disagreed. “You made him doubt himself, Blair. I heard him at the end - he was losing his grasp of who he thought he was. Every time he took on another personality, he was really just running from himself, and you threw everything he was running from back into his face. You made him hesitate, and you did the most important thing you could.”

“What’s that?” Blair asked quietly.

“You bought yourself time,” Jim whispered. “Time for me to find you. You kept yourself alive, Blair. Nothing’s more important than that.”

Finally the sobs died away, and Jim continued to hold Blair, a comfortable silence enveloping them. Only when Blair’s shoulders had stopped shaking did Jim let go, easing slowly out from the embrace. Blair returned his grin with a shy, watery smile before lying back down onto the bed.

“How did you find me?” Blair asked quietly, and Jim grinned again at the memory. Now that the danger was over, he could finally allow himself to quietly marvel at the fact that he’d been able to track Lash down from the tiniest of clues. 

“Ducks,” he said simply, and Blair’s tear-stained face creased up in confusion.

“Ducks?” he echoed.

“I went back to Susan Frasier’s apartment,” Jim clarified, “and found a down feather in the bathtub. That took us back to the water that had been found in her lungs - it had bird waste in it. So we started looking for duck ponds that Lash could use without being seen. The Bloxham Shipping building that he took you to is right round the corner from Alfred’s Pond.”

“Wait a minute,” Blair said, his voice calmer than before. “You said you heard me. Where were you?”

“Outside on the docks,” Jim said, amused at the amazed look that crept over Blair’s face. “I used all the tricks you’ve taught me these last few weeks, and I could hear both of you. I followed the sounds until I could see the lights from the candles.”

“Whoa,” Blair breathed, all his fear apparently lessened by the revelation of Jim’s senses. “But, you must have been hundreds of yards away. I didn’t think you could hear that far!”

Jim shrugged as Blair smothered a yawn. “Neither did I, but it worked. I used my sense of touch with the cold to make sure that I didn’t zone, and I tracked you both down.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Blair admitted, and Jim could see his eyes beginning to droop with exhaustion from his emotional outburst. “Thank you,” he whispered, yawning again and struggling to stay awake.

Jim smiled. “Don’t you get it, Blair? You taught me how to use my senses. You’re the one who showed me what they could do. I wouldn’t have been able to use my senses if you hadn’t been here. In a way, you saved yourself.”

Blair grinned back at him, his eyes drifting closed and this time, staying shut. “I foresee tests, man…” he muttered just before slipping into sleep, and Jim chuckled, getting up from his chair. Sandburg wasn’t the only one who badly needed sleep.

He pulled the blanket up over Sandburg’s shoulders to ward off the cold, and then moved over to the empty cot, sitting down on the edge and watching Sandburg’s sleeping form for a moment. 

Jim couldn’t help reflect on the irony. In showing him how to find control once more, Blair had given him back his senses, and those senses had, in turn, now given Blair back to him.

Jim knew all too well that if it wasn’t for his senses, he would never have been able to save Sandburg. All the tests, all those endless hours spent in labs feeling like some kind of performing seal suddenly seemed somehow worth it. 

It had been a month since they’d met, and Jim was finally, truly aware of just how powerful an asset his sentinel senses could be.

Jim could only imagine what they might be able to accomplish in the months and years to come, and perhaps for the first time, he found himself actually looking forward to the future.

Somehow, he had the feeling it was going to be a wild ride.


End file.
